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Fishwich

6.28.20124.16.2012

There are things I would love to do but there isn’t room for them, in this crowded life. These days leave big piles unfinished. Time marches on and I never get to the end of the to do lists and I always discover you don’t need to do all of it. There isn’t time or room or space to finish. Get the bare minimum done and get out and onto the next thing. There is always a next thing that starts before the last thing ends and so it goes.

If i had time I might fish, actually bait hooks with worms bought for the garden, which if i had time, would bloom year round with flowers and fruit. I’d toss the mudfish and bullheads back into the water, humanely and quickly, hoping for trout with the next bite, the next nibble.

I’d catch rainbow hued silver skinned and plump freshwater creatures and slit them with the sharp knife on my belt, pulling the maroon and pink guts out handily and bloodless. I’d cook the flesh quickly in deep pans of foaming hot butter, or steam it on the bones inside of parchment paper. I’d serve it either way piled with woody bunches of herbs tossed with a drizzle of fragrant oil, like a salad.

If there were time I would make bread at dawn, kneading the flour and allowing the loaves to rise with the sun. I would beat them down and let them rise again, and maybe even once more, the gluten creating and recreating itself in a bubbly web, lending softness and air to the chewy insides. The crust would bake hard and brown and cut the roof of mouths with its freshness.

Perhaps I would have caught many small fish, and the loaves would be flattened with my hand and split in half just after baking. The fish would be fried whole and hot in a buttery bath then stuffed between the bread halves with frisee and whatever herbs might be at hand. Sandwiches made with fishes you caught and bread you baked might taste profoundly good, bibilically so. I’d feel like i accomplished a great deal, and would go to bed satisfied.